3D Paddle Bash! (1994)

“Your game is great!” – J.B., 1994

“I’ve found that months have gone by and I still haven’t taken it off my hard disk” – K.B., 1995

A Brief History

3d Paddle Bash! is a 3D version of pong for Macintosh. I originally released it in 1994 (around the time Mac OS 7 came out) as a modestly-priced shareware game. It got pretty good exposure for a few years, and thanks to the publisher SofSource it was even available for a short while in CompUSA and other stores. Steve Wozniak (original Apple computer inventor and author of its breakout game) himself registered a couple copies!

In 2000 I released version 1.4 (downloadable from this page) removing the shareware notices and making it free for anyone to own and play. While the computers it was written for are obsolete many times over, until recently the game still worked under Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X.

Unfortunately the last OS it ran natively under was Mac OS 9. Under OS X it requires Classic, which in turn requires a PowerPC. On an Intel-based Mac it’s only playable using a Classic Mac emulator like Sheepshaver or Basilisk. (That is also a way to run it on Windows or Linux.)

System Requirements Download
Macintosh
  • 68020 chip or later (including PowerPC, G4, and G5) but not Intel.
  • Color Quickdraw
  • System 6.0.5 through OS 9. (OS X users: the game runs in the Classic environment on PowerPC, but you must set your monitor to 256 colors before running the game. Other OS X users will need a Classic Mac emulator.)
  • 1,000K memory in 256-colors; 700K in 16-colors.
  • A mouse.
Click here to download 3D Paddle Bash 1.4, for older Macs. (1.6 Megabytes)

Hints and Troubleshooting

The game has a help menu that explains how to play. Also, see the README file that comes with the game for rules and troubleshooting tips.